Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Forgotten Weapons" channel.

  1.  @firepower7017  And in this sense, the BAR was definitely worse. Allied reports actually praised the Breda 30. All the bashing is a modern-era thing when, in armchair reviews, there is an annoying habit of "if it's different to what i'm used to, then it has to be wrong".
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  2.  @firepower7017  And so? Any weapon ever made had been made for a reason. When is mentioned a "worst" is implied "used in a perceptible quantity".
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  3.  @firepower7017  It doesn't make any sense. The BAR had been used in WWII, the Type 11 had been used in WWII, etc. They are not exempt by anything.
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  4. Actually there were worse. This is the worst Italian machiegun, not the worst WWII.
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  5. You are welcome. Mind also the post-WWII battle rifles that still had the provision to be fed with stripper clips (M14, FAL, BM59...). Originally the M14 armed GIs were not issued with all the rounds already in magazines, but with four or five loaded magazines only, and the rest of the rounds in stripper clips (and you needed four stripper clips to load a 20 round magazine). Because magazines were expensive.
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  6. It's not misconstrued, it's their function. When the rollers are forced inwards during the recoil, they not only retreat the firing pin, but all the rear part of the bolt, that's really heavy. So they accelerates the rear part of the bolt in respect to the front part, and, by reaction, since the energy impaired to the system is fixed, they slow down the front part and prevent extraction problems.
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  7. There had never been a special load for the Breda 30.
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  8. For those that had been hit by it.
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  9. Other good ideas: Quick exchange barrel. it's the fastest of WWII along with that of the MG42, and it doesn't require the gunner to change position or to move the weapon (M60 designers should have taken note). Reload, doesn't require to the gunner to change position or to move the weapon (differently from the DP-28, or any belt fed MG). Breda weapons tended to be "overmachined", but there is very little precision machining involved (Not by chance the very precise "H" piece is a separate one), so machining was not time consuming.
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  10. The CR.42 had been in first line service when the Gloster Gladiator was as well.
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  11. Actually to use your most able hand to reload is not a fail. It's not like you are doing much with your right hand while reloading, better to use it for the complex movements, and the left one to simply hold the gun. Mind that this weapon has a shoulder support, so you don't need the right hand to keep it in position.
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  12. Is not that they didn't know detachable magazines. Is that the goal was exactly to not have a detachable magazine, cause detachable magazines often had feeding issues, cause it was not easy to design a magazine that was so cheap to be discarded on the field, and so tough and consistently built to not have feeding troubles. The Brits too designed a tilting magazine for the BREN (they didn't adopt it in the end, but it was even more awkward than that of the Breda). There was not a single belt fed LMG in the world in 1930. Belts were not that a great solution for LMGs in general, cause, for weight consifderations, you cannot use too long belts in LMG role, and to change a short belt, requires more time than to replace two or three magazines (and you don't have a spent belt hanging from the rifle while trying to run).
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  13. It got people killed. A lot of enemies. It wasn't the best design out there, but it usually got the job done.
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  14. In WWII to have more than 25 rifle rounds in a magazine meant to be in search of problems.
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  15. Why the US Army put a stripper clip guide on the M14, and they were the US, and it was post WWII? We are used to movies, where everything always works, but in reality, in the '30s, it was a REAL problem for anyone to manufacture magazines that were at one time so cheap to be discarded on the field, and so well and consistently manufactured to not have feeding problems. Even the Brits manufactured experimental tilting magazines for the Bren (they had not been adopted in the end, but their loading was far more awkward than that of the Breda).
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  16.  @plasticbeetle6209  The trouble with the M249 belt, as described in a Marine report, is that, when it jams (that, with any automatic belt fed weapon is not a question of "if", nor of "when", but of "how often"), the gunner opens the action to clear the jam, and the belt falls into the box. At that point the gunner, other than clearing the jam, has to decide if open the box and search for the end of the belt to use the rest of it, or discard the box and use another one of his limited supply. While he performs all those actions, he's not supporting the squad and he's defenseless.
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  17.  @badcopnodonut08  OK. Now come back when you understood at least half of what I said, or when you have cleared up your mind about what a LMG is (a hint. It's NOT a M240). Thank you for having confirmed that to change a belt requires the same time than to change several magazines anyway,
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  18. An MG34 bolt is composed of 28 parts. That of a BAR is composed of 18 parts. This one is composed of ...four parts, recoil spring included. So, no.
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  19. Not really better, since its main problem was the lack of a quick change barrel, and the tendency to lock due to overheating.
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  20. in WWII Only HMGs could shoot more than 200 rounds continuously without barrel change (if you wanted to mantain it usable), and not all of them. The barrel change of the MG42 was every 150 rounds.
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  21.  @BanCorporateOwnedHouses  So who wrote the Tactical and Technical Trends, No. 7, Sept. 10, 1942, was Italian too? That's a really peculiar opinion. The BAR was not a light machinegun, and had been forced to cover that role. It had not a quick exchange barrel, the very light barrel rapidly overheated, it was difficult to strip and service, but if not completely serviced on a daily basis, it rapidly became inoperable. It was so "satisfactory" that, had not the world ended, the US would have replaced it with the WAR (Winchester Automatic Rifle) despite the logistic nightmare that would have meant.
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  22.  @BanCorporateOwnedHouses  As said, the US could simply trow more rifles at the problem, and yet, there were multiple occasions were the rifelmen were left without automatic fire cover because the BAR was cooling down. If you needed three BAR to do the work of a single Breda 30, then the BAR is not "sure as hell better than this", it is an inferior design, but the soldiers were lucky enought to be born in a country that could manufacture much more of them. Actually the US Intelligence praised the Breda 30. The "tactical and tecnical trend" (the magazine of the US intelligence) compared it favourably to the BREN, for performances in dusty conditions and because it was more apt to be manned by a single man. To me it was, all in all, a less than satisfactory weapon, but all the bashing is the product of internet era, when opinions tend to be repeated time after time, every time radicalising them further.
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  23. A WWII BAR B-Team was composed of a gunner, an assistant gunner and an ammo bearer, for a rifle that, other than having reliability and mainteinance issues, easily overheated (and at that point the gunner only had to wait for it to cool down and NOT provide support fire, since the rifle had not a quick exchange barrel), and was not really apt for firing in prone position, nor for firing from the shoulder. The thing it was really designed to do, firing from the hips, was practically forgotten with the end of WWI. The Breda 30 was originally issued with two spare barrels. After some months of war it was noted that they were often insufficient for the volume of fire the weapon had to provide, and the provision was enhanced to four spare barrels. Any barrel of the Breda 30 is heavier than that of a BAR, and can fire more rounds first to overheat. So how many BARs are needed to provide the volume of fire of a single Breda 30? The USA could simply adress BAR's issues by throwing more rifles at the problem, but that doesn't mean it was better than anything else.
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  24. Breda 37, Breda 38, Breda 20/65, Scotti 20/70...
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  25. Sometimes I wonder what the vievers actually see when they watch theese clips. It's acutally a lot easier to strip field this than a BAR. The bolt of this gun is made of 4 parts in total. The one of an MG34 is made of 28 parts.
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  26. Fact is that it was not THAT bad. The "Tactical and Technical Trend" (the magazine of US intelligence) No. 7, Sept. 10, 1942 deemed it to be "mechanically superior to the Bren gun under dusty conditions". Overall it had been surely a less than satisfactory weapon, but all the bashing is more an internet era product.
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  27. The Breda 30 was the last offspring of a long development line. All the previous designs of that line had an oiler. Several competitor projects (Ie the Brixia 1930, or the FIAT Model "S", and even the LMG that the Breda 30 replaced (the SIA 1918) hadn't. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/36/d6/cc/36d6cc10cfc38fd03d92dd54b1c646a3.jpg
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  28. Non proprio corretto. In realtà ci sono un bel po' di amenità. Ad es: Ogni MG42-MG3 mai costruita ha una canna "tremolante". La canna si muove solo finchè un colpo non viene sparato, poi è l'espansione della cartuccia che ferma il tutto, e l'arma è precisa. Nessuno ha mai notato il mirino sul copricanna essere un problema in sessant'anni di uso dell' MG42-MG3. Ogni mitragliatrice leggera moderna ha un ottica montata sul ricevitore, che non compensa il cambio canna, eppure... Sono classici casi di problemi inventati a tavolino perchè tu sai che l'arma era "cattiva", e quindi devi trovare i motivi per cui era cattiva.
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  29. "going into battery" means having the cartridge correctly seated into the chamber and with the bolt closed over it. "out of battery" means having the cartridge not correctly inserted into the chamber. It took the name from the naval artillery battery, where the muzzle loaded guns were moved "out of battery" for recharging, and then moved back "into battery" to fire.
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  30. It was enough to change the barrel, since the parent case was the same between 6.5 and 7.35.
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  31. Not really Rube Goldberg. An MG34 bolt is composed of 28 parts. That of a BAR is composed of 18 parts. This one is composed of ...four parts, recoil spring included. The only parts in the action that required precision machining were the "H block" and the rotating lock, so two small separate parts. it was actually an easy MG to manufacture.
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  32. Allied reports of the time actually praised the Breda 30. As strange at it may seem, they praised it's reliability in sandy environments compared to the Bren. Internet "truth" are often only misinformations repeated many times. The Chauchat had problems even if kept perfectly clean (the barrel jamming in the shroud due to thermal expansion), but the real plus of the Chauchat was that France could manufacture 260.000 of them in a partially invaded country in the same time UK manufactured 50.000 Lewis gun. One vs one, the Lewis Gun was a better weapon, but one vs five, the Chauchat wins big time.
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  33. Sometimes I wonder what the viewers actually see when they watch theese clips. It's acutally a lot easier to strip field this than a BAR. The bolt of this gun is made of 4 parts in total. The one of an MG34 is made of 28 parts.
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  34. 20-25 rounds were the norm for LMGs in WWII. Bigger magazines meant to be in search of troubles.
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  35. Not really. To change the 50 rounds belt took much more time than to reload even this LMG.
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  36. FG-42 was not available in 1930. 20-25 rounds magazine was the norm for LMGs then. More meant to be in search of problems.
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  37. There are not loose rounds if you remove a loaded mag.
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  38.  @stanleystrycharz2572  MG42 bolt, greatly simplified in respect to the MG34, 16 parts. Bren bolt, 30 parts. Breda 30 bolt, still 4 parts. So, what's the part of the weapon that has so many pieces to make up for the fact that its action had from 1/4 to less than 1/7 parts that that of the concurrent designs, and to make you state "I guess Italians never understood the K.I.S.S. model of designing things! "?
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  39. Lots of pieces? An MG34 bolt is composed of 28 parts. That of a BAR is composed of 18 parts. This one is composed of ...four parts, recoil spring included.
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  40. Actually the US intelligence deemed it to be superior to the BREN in dusty conditions. An oiler is less than ideal in those conditions, but that's only ONE of the charateristics.
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  41. In the MG42 the rollers force the rear part of the bolt to recoil at an higher speed than the front part. Since the force impaired to the bolt by the cartridge is fixed, higher speed of the rear part of the bolt means slower speed of the front part. Since the rear part of the bolt is the heavier one, a slightly higher speed of the rear part means a considerably slower speed of the front part, and the speed of the front part is what counts to avoid extraction problems. The MG34 works the same way. Only it uses inclined surfaces instead of rollers. When the front part of the bolt rotates, the rear part (the heavier one) has to recoil at double the speed of the front one, but to accelerate something at double the speed in the same time, you need 4 times the energy. Here energy is fixed, so what you obtain is the slowdown of the front part of the bolt. In the Breda 30 the bolt doesn't rotate and is a single piece. Bolt and barrel recoil in a straight line until the barrel stops and the bolt snatch the case from it. Like in a typical semiauto pistol.
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  42. Actually the Breda 30 it had a better real ROF than a BAR. As Ian said, the MG was initially issued with two spare barrels. After the first clashes, it was seen that they were not enough, and the provision was rised to four. A barrel had to be replaced after 200 rounds of continuous fire. So there was the real problem to fire more than 600 rounds in continuous with this gun. A the same time, a BAR, after 150 rounds of continuous fire, was pretty much a club, waiting for it to cool off.
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  43. The Japanese Type 11 was way worse.
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  44.  @rudolphantler6309  You are welcome. It comes from: "Old French baterie, from battre ‘to strike’, from Latin battuere . The original sense was ‘metal articles wrought by hammering’, later ‘a number of pieces of artillery used together’".
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  45. It comes from the time of black powder muzzle-loaded guns in warships. Those guns recoiled during fire (tipically of a broadside) into the ship, so that it was possible to muzzle-load them. Once done, they had to be pushed to the side of the ship again, once there they were "in battery" (with all the other guns), ready to be fired again. Today, "in battery" means that the cartridge is perfectly seated in the chamber, and the breech is closed, so the firearm is ready to be fired safely.
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  46. False. The first weapon that failed was the Tommy gun of Walter Audisio (good example of US MPs quality), the second was the Beretta 1934 pistol of Lampredi, and the one that worked was a French MAS36, of Moretti.
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  47. The US B-team (the one that serviced ONE BAR in WWII) was composed of three men as well. Gunner, assistant gunner, ammo bearer. That was the norm for any automatic weapon in WWII and later.
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  48. The MG34's barrel rattles as well, but both guns were considered to be very accurate. The barrel rattles only until a round is fired. Once fired, the expansion of the case tighten the action, and the barrel acts like a free floating barrel.
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  49.  @TrangleC  Yeah. That's the difference. The difference is between extracting the old magazine, inserting the new one, and opening the magazine, inserting the clip, closing the magazine. Many people, like you, think everything they are not used to is a big issue. In reality the time spent in reloading has very little importance. Is a problem only for harmchair "experts". IE the wartime instructions on the use of the BREN provided a practical ROF of one magazine a minute. It was contemplated an "exceptional" ROF of four magazines a minute, warning that, at that rof, the barrel had to be changed after 10 magazines (so two minutes and half of fire), and the entire squad had only 20 magazines available (so 5 minutes. Battles tend to last a little more). A second more in reloading counts for nothing.
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  50.  @TrangleC To have a quick exchange barrel is what determines the practical rate of fire of a MG. To spend three seconds in reloading the weapon instead of two doesn't change it. There is no way to quickly fire 600 rounds with a FG-42, like there wasn't with the BAR.
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